Samsung USB 3.0 Flash Drive Duo at a glance:

If you’re a photographer who uses both a desktop or laptop computer and an Android tablet or smartphone, then you’ll probably know that USB on-the-go memory sticks such as this Samsung Flash Drive Duo can be used to share files between the devices. It has a full-size USB connector that plugs directly into most Windows or Apple machines, along with a micro USB connector that will work with the majority of Android phones or tablets from the likes of Samsung or Sony.

Among the many similar devices on the market, this one stands out due to its unusually neat, slimline metal-bodied design. Samsung claims it to be water, shock, magnet, temperature and X-ray proof, but the same is true of most flash-based drives. However it’s nice to know that it should survive moderate abuse. With capacities up to 128GB available, there’s plenty of space to store your photo albums.

A small surround at the base of the micro USB connector is designed to allow it to fit past any case you might use on your phone or tablet. The connector itself is protected by a plastic cover that snaps on firmly, at least when new. However having previously broken one of these relatively fragile plugs on a similar device, I’d advise tying the cover to the drive using the lanyard holes through both, to avoid losing it.

With a USB 3.0 connector, Samsung promises transfer speeds up to 130MB/sec. In practice, copying a 5GB folder of image files to and from my MacBook Pro, I recorded read and write speeds of around 100MB/ sec and 25MB/sec respectively, making it one of the fastest devices of its type I’ve used. Likewise browsing 20MP image files on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S was practically instantaneous. Overall this is a neatly designed and speedy device that’s great for backing up your photos and showing them off on an Android tablet.